Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and a main contributor to The Federalist essays.  Hamilton made the decision to publish a series of essays defending the proposed Constitution and to explain in detail its principles. 

Alexander Hamilton recruited Madison and Jay to write the essays and chose Publius as the pseudonym under which the series would be written, in honor of the great Roman Publius Valerius Publicola.  The original Publius is credited with being instrumental in the founding of the Roman Republic.  Hamilton believed he would be instrumental with the founding of the American Republic. 

At the time of publication, the authorship of the articles was a closely guarded secret, which was kept up until Hamilton's death in 1804, when a list crediting him as one of the authors became public.  It claimed the majority of the essays were written by Hamilton.  Some of these would later be disputed by Madison, who claimed to have written several of the articles credited to Hamilton.

Authored Federalist essays: nos. 1, 6-9, 11-13, 15-17, 18-20 (assisted Madison), 21-32, 34-36, 50-52 (with Madison), 54-58 (with Madison), 59-61, 62-63 (with Madison), 65-85

James Madison, the fourth president of the United States and "Father of the Constitution," was one of the principal founders of America's republican form of government. He was Hamilton's main collaborator on The Federalist essays, having written twenty-nine of the essays, although Madison and others since have claimed that he wrote more. Hamilton's list incorrectly ascribed No. 54 to John Jay, when in fact Jay wrote No. 64, which has provided some evidence for Madison's suggestion.

Statistical analyses indicate that ten of the twelve disputed papers were likely written by Madison, but as the writers themselves never released a complete list, no one will ever know for sure.

Authored Federalist essays: nos. 10, 14, 18-20 (assisted by Hamilton), 37-49, 50-52 (with Hamilton), 53, 54-58 (with Hamilton), 62-63 (with Hamilton)

John Jay was an American diplomat and politician. He was the author of five of The Federalist essays and ater served as Chief Justice of the United States from 1789-1795. Jay became ill after contributing four essays, and he was only able to write one more before the end of the project, which explains the large gap between essays 5 and 64.&

Authored Federalist essays: nos. 2-5, 64